Benefits claimants in the North-East and North Yorkshire have been hit harder by Government’s ‘bedroom tax’ than any other region, a new study has revealed.

The report, by Oxfam and the New Policy Institute (NPI), warns that wide-ranging cuts are changing the shape of welfare support at a time when rising prices are making it harder for families to make ends meet.

The study, Multiple Cuts For The Poorest Families, found 28,000 of the poorest households in the region are being hit by the bedroom tax and are £12.80 per week worse off, with around 3,000 at least £20 a week out of pocket.

As a result, job seekers, carers, single parents or those with a disability or illness who are unable to work are being pushed deeper into poverty, it said.

North Durham MP Kevan Jones said the record use of food banks was a clear indication that not only the unemployed, but also those in low pay, are being forced to rely on charity to survive.

He said: “In the year 2014 it is a national scandal. It is a situation where they are forcing people to move who have lived in the same homes for many years. The Government is treating people’s home as commodities rather than homes.”

But cuts to council tax benefit are more widespread in the region, where 103,000 of the poorest households have seen a cut in their cash payments.

These households now have to pay around £2.40 per week in council tax, a charge they were previously deemed too poor to pay.

The worst off are those 40,000 households who have seen both cuts in their housing benefit and their council tax benefit.

North-West Durham MP Pat Glass said: “People who have never been in debt before are now in debt. 

“What worries me more is that people who are on the margins do not seem to be able to hold on any more are falling into all sorts of problems.”

Renters in the private sector have also seen their housing benefit slashed too, through cuts to the Local Housing Allowance.

The research estimates that this has affected 29,000 of the poorest households in the area, costing them around £7.80 per week.

Mark Goldring, Oxfam chief executive, said: "This is the latest evidence of a perfect storm blowing massive holes in the safety net which is supposed to stop people falling further into poverty.”

In London, where the population is two-and-a-half to three times greater than the North-East, around 34,000 of the poorest households are being hit by the bedroom tax.

On average they are £20 per week worse off, the highest cut of any region, and around 7,000 are being hit by at least £25 per week.

But cuts to council tax benefit are much more widespread in the capital where 240,000 of the poorest households have seen a cut.

Geraldine Kay, chief executive Derwentside Homes, the social landlord, which manages former council housing stock in the north-west of County Durham, said: “The North-East has been disproportionately adversely affected by welfare reforms compared to all other regions with the exception of London for a different reason.

“In London the issue is the extortionate cost of housing, to buy or to rent, exceeding the benefit cap.

“In the North-East it is the ‘bedroom tax’ that is causing particular hardship as our housing stock is dominated by two and three bedroom family homes with very few flats and apartments.

“There are simply not the smaller properties for people to downsize into and tenants are caught in the ‘bedroom tax’ poverty trap.”

Conservative Stockton South MP James Wharton said hundreds of thousands of people are on waiting list for homes while hundreds of thousands more have properties bigger than they needs, which are paid for by the taxpayer.

He said: “The housing system this government inherited was in need of major reform and by paying for what people need, rather than over the odds, the taxpayer can get people into the right sized homes and free up properties for those in desperate need.”

A spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions said £94bn is spent a year on welfare for working-age people and the reforms aim to improve the lives of the poorest in society.

She said three million families are better off as a result of the Coalition’s Universal Credit system.

She said: “Britain has a strong welfare state, but for too long the system trapped those it was designed to help in a state of dependency.

“There's nothing kind or fair about that.”